Born to Run
By Doug Wu

In the hit song "Born to Run" Bruce Springsteen sang of word pictures such as “suicide machines,” the need to “run until we drop,” “highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive,” that “everybody’s out on the run tonight there’s no place left to hide," and that people like him and his girl Wendy “were born to run.”

It's been 34 years since Springsteen first sang "Born to Run." I guess in those days a guy or gal of modest means could ride motorcycles or street rods out of their hometowns and never look back. It's much harder today to duplicate what Bruce Springsteen did so many years ago when he rode out of Asbury Park, New Jersey and into superstardom.

I think the biggest problem is that the fuel that lubricates our economy, oil, is becoming more expensive with each passing year. Thankfully, oil prices took a nosedive the past few weeks but that's due to a global economic crisis that's driving speculators from oil markets and driving down the world's demand for oil. It's quite possible the recent run up in the price of a barrel of oil was due to speculation. There's evidence speculators were using borrowed money to increase their leverage in worldwide oil markets. The global economic crisis is forcing speculators liquidate their positions in oil markets to pay their creditors.

Fundamentally, the recent drop in the price of oil is due to a change in its demand and not an increase in its supply. The world's economy will recover and, likewise, the price of oil will spiral upwards as the daily demand for oil outpaces what producers can bring to the market. The world is not experiencing the start of "peak oil", where world oil production reaches a zenith and then rapidly falls off, but the end of cheap oil.

Interestingly, my 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid is still averaging 50 mpg with winter just around the corner. I think the car's milage will dip into the 40's this winter. The car's auto-stop feature doesn't work when the engine is ice cold. Also, in the winter the car's engine is going to burn fuel like crazy warming to operating temperature.

I suppose if Springsteen was writing "Born to Run" today he would write of people driving hybrid cars such as the Honda Civic Hybrid out of towns for the open road and, hopefully, better lives.